With two exceptions, the essays in this collection arise from papers delivered at a conference on the cultural contexts of the European witchhunts, held at the University of Exeter in September 1991. The editors are grateful to all those who participated in making that conference a most memorable occasion, and in particular to our co-organiser, Colin Jones, who has also contributed much to making this volume possible. We should also like to thank the organisations whose grants helped fund the conference, namely the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation, the University of Exeter's Research Fund and the School of English and American Studies at the University.

The editors also wish gratefully to acknowledge History Workshop Journal for permission to reprint Lyndal Roper's essay ‘Witchcraft and fantasy in early modern Germany’, where it first appeared in vol. 32 (Autumn 1991).

The conference was timed to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas, and many of the papers sought to re-evaluate the arguments of that work in the light of subsequent research. This collection continues that dialogue, both in its introduction and in the shaping of the essays into five sections reflecting the five chapters on witchcraft in Religion and the Decline of Magic.